


Not Written in Stone

by black_hat_with_bells



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Dark fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_hat_with_bells/pseuds/black_hat_with_bells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of testing Gabriel's powers, Elle stays by his side. It isn't the fairytale that she had hoped it would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Written in Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [superkappa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=superkappa).



> A/N: I’d like to thank my beta, dragynflies (on livejournal), for looking this over for me. I tinkered with it some more, so any mistakes you see are my own. This was originally posted at heroes_exchange on livejournal.
> 
> This was written for the prompt: “A modern day retelling/reinterpretation of a Fairytale. Particular favorites that I'd love to see tackled to see would be Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and The Beast, or Bluebeard (this one could especially work for Syelle)”-superkappa

Trevor Zeitlan was halfway down the hall when Elle intercepted him.

“Change of plans, turn around,” she ordered, different by a long-shot from the girl who had demurely told Gabriel Gray that she had left something in her car—silly her—and would be back in one minute.

“One minute might be cutting it close,” he had joked, with his mouth twisting in mid-sentence in self-disgust. Elle imagined he had a courtroom in his head, the one from those movies. The prosecutor always objected, and the judge always banged the gravel. In a way, it was funny, a prosecutor prosecuting his own self.

But it was also funny in that she had never seen this kind of behavior before. He intrigued her. And just five minutes ago, he told her that he needed her. As long as he had her, he’d be all right. Those words had snagged on something inside of her that was new and desperate.

“Time me,” she had said, to be cute, and rushed out the door. Now, she moved a struggling Zeitlan down a stairwell that would have the scent of smoking demin in the morning. They’d think a smoker had caught his pants of fire. Close, but it was her hand fisted in the back of this guy’s jeans and burning his ass off. His protests were in the octaves of squeaks.

Bennet flung open the van doors, looking ready to adapt, fight, but his shoulder’s relaxed as he took in the situation.

“Get scared?” he asked Trevor.

“N-no, this bitch is…god.”

“Yes I am, and I’m taking this,” Elle said, and pulled Trevor’s cell-phone out of his front pocket. “Get in the van like a good boy.”

Trevor did so, hiding behind Noah in a crouch, unable to sit down.

“Elle,” Noah began, but it was too late. Her father answered the phone on the second ring. Suddenly she didn’t know what to say, her mouth like cotton.

“I hope this is important because.”

“Daddy, I want to keep him.”

The old stand-by apparently wasn’t the best way to start. Her father sighed, about to respond with his old stand-bye, and she plunged on.

“I can make him into an agent. He trusts me. Think about it.”

Bennet made a grab for the phone. Missed. “He’d be perfect, and if I could work with him for just the teeniest bit more, he’d like us so much he’d do anything for us!”

“That’s not the mission.” Her father and Bennet chorused at the same time. Spooky.

“I disagree strongly. People don’t change. He was able to kill once, and one’s one too many. He’ll do it again,” Bennet continued even though Elle was waving her hand for him to shush.

“For us, though,” Elle argued, her eyes bright and inspired. “For us. I know I can convince him.”

“I don’t know that,” her father said, but his voice was thoughtful, sensing potential.

“If you could see him, he’s like a puppy. He just needs to be house-broken. Look, if I make a mistake, you’re free to send in the clean-up crew, and I can be grounded. But couldn’t we try this first? You said, the less mess, the better.”

Her father agreed. Bennet looked worried. “This will not work,” he argued. “The combination of you two will be like driving a tank into a nitroglycerine factory.”

“Fun.”

Seeing through her jest, Noah didn’t look away. “If Mr. Gray in there wasn’t already beyond help, you’d be the last person on earth capable of helping him. Surely even you must see that.”

Noah had a tendency to get past every layer she had and get to her weakest point, get there and squeeze it. Flinching, she almost admitted it, but Daddy didn’t raise a quitter.

“Just watch,” Elle said, with flare, and she knew he would, his curiosity taking precedent over everything else. Noah always had to know, but he thought he knew a little too much for Elle’s taste.

When she made it, straightening her pure and sweet dress top on the way, Gabriel was sitting in his chair, looking down at the champagne bottle in his hands. Raking his eyes back towards the doorway as she entered, he paused, caught off guard and quickly stood up. He couldn’t hide his surprise, and his smile was too bright.

“You thought I wasn’t coming back,” Elle said.

“…Yes,” he admitted, sitting back down. “I thought, you wouldn’t come tonight either. Then after what I said, it’s obvious, I must have scared you.”

“You don’t scare me.”

He closed his eyes, holding back a sad laugh. ‘If only she knew’. It’s the other way around.

“Well,” she paused, leaning over him, and he held his breath. “How good you smell scares me. I don’t know what I might do.”

He rubbed a hand along his thigh, nervous, and she knelt in front of him, in the role, and cupped his chin with her hand, liking the delicate feel of his skin.

“Gabriel. Look at me.”

He looked, lost and resigned. So like those men in those rooms at her home, her dollhouse. Only they flinched and steeled themselves. None of them had ever looked at her so openly, practically bleeding out their emotions. No one had ever wanted her there. So, she liked her pure clothing—her new skin—and she liked the new feeling beating in her chest, and she liked that he needed her.

Her world had grown from one building to so much more, and Gabriel? Was hers.

She could destroy him, because she could. But she could also save him. Also because I can, she thought stubbornly.

“I’m not going to leave you, or yell April Fool’s and tell you this was all a joke. Actually, it’s kind of late to tell you this, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried,” she confided, and he reached out and grasped her wrists, the tips on his fingers on the pulse of her wrist.

He swallowed hard. “Thank you. You have no idea how much good you’ve done, how many...” He stopped cold.

“I know one good thing I did,” she said and leaned in for a chaste kiss on his forehead.

“I only need you. I promise, I can hold on as long as you’re here.”

Elle was burning on the inside, and it occurred to her that she was happy.

Truly content. She beamed. “Let’s drink to that.” They did, huddled together on his couch like two children, the soft light from the candles that perfect addition. Soft, light, with a promise held within. The silence between them wasn’t un-companionable or uncomfortable, and here she was, sipping champagne with a man holding her hand, wanting to put his hand on her leg.

Wanting to.

Gabriel’s apartment wasn’t fancy, like the Petrellis’ rumored houses were, but it had the quaint cottage, turtle-shell feel to it, a me…an us-against-the-world feel. It felt like home.

After awhile, his energy started to fade: she half suspected he needed the wine’s liquid courage to sit besides her at all. As an experiment, a stranger in a new land, she rubbed his neck, her affection not a lie, and there were goose-bumps under her palm. He leaned in to her touch like a new pet.

“You’re tired, huh? You’ve been through so much.”

“Through hell,” he agreed.

“Well, let’s get you into bed, sleepy head,” she cooed, and helped him to his feet. Guided him to his bed.  
Okay, okay. Her first instinct was to make him feel good, and to crawl into that bed along with him, but if he could hold back, for her, it’d be no problem. All she took off of him were his glasses, his tie, and his shoes. Heck, she even left his socks on, how about that?

This guy yielded so much, surrendered so much, and he let her pull his covers up to his chin. Hah. She couldn’t wait to do more.

“Goodnight, Gabriel.” Elle kissed his forehead (chaste, chaste, chase) and closed his bedroom door softly. She did a little dance as she passed the hidden camera. Give her an Emmy.

She curled up on the couch and slept better than she ever had, with a content smile on her face.

***

The watch shop didn’t have that much business. They sat together on the bench and she watched him work. All those little pieces seemed boring but he understood it well.

Elle talked, mostly about TV stuff, since he didn’t know much about it. She was careful not to bother him too much: she only really got talking when he looked back up at that beam where he had hung.

She used the time to plan. How to get dresses and things to his apartment. That morning, he had been embarrassed, lightly touching her forehead to wake her.

“I should have offered you my bed, and slept out here.” He scuffed his shoes on the floor. Adorable! She stretched out her legs and tapped her toes against his shoes. He blushed.

“Silly, your couch is better than my bed,” she said, undoing him with a smile. “It’s so early though.”

“I have to get to the shop. I wouldn’t go in but I left a clock unfinished.”

This was stated in the same way as ‘I left my child starving over night there, and that’s terrible, and I feel terrible’. Elle, however, didn’t catch it. She had never really been out when it wasn’t half twilight and morning. Fun! She held his hand the entire time that they walked in the quiet.

Now it was noon.

And she did find something odd. He didn’t ask her any questions. Her friends on the tables, they had loads of questions. Why me, who the hell are you people, and so on and so on. They never shut up, usually.

Gabriel didn’t want to know the details of her. Strange, since he described his addiction as a need to know. Elle thought that he believed her to be perfect, and since that was a first, she wasn’t going to complain.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” he said, not looking up. “You must be bored out of your mind.”

“Oh! No, I like being with you. You could be like a postman and I’d still be having fun.”

“Definitely not a postman. This is a little more complicated than what they do.”

Elle nodded.

“Anytime you want to go, tell me.”

She picked up a gear, watched him tense slightly. She set it down carefully.

“Maybe I can pick up some tricks from this trade,” she offered. He tried to explain a few things, but for the most part, she was quiet and he worked. For once, she wasn’t badgered by ‘Elle, do this’, ‘Elle, do that’,  
and ‘Stop burning me’. She was peaceful and daydreamed in red and black.

At the end of the day, he turned to her, eyes wide. “I am glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She did, and it put a bounce in her step as they went home together.

***

The only problem was beyond playing house, Elle didn’t know how to keep a house. She fiddled with her hands, in the kitchen, eyeing the stove. It eyed her back, laughing at her.

Gabriel walked in, smiling, but wary. If she felt uncomfortable, please, please let him know. She felt uncomfortable all right. Bennet had relocated down the block, and she had been told through a fake phone call on her cell phone that he wasn’t going to babysit for however long this took to blow up.

She had told him it was fine, sensing Gabriel’s palpable disappointment. He had taken his work home, and had stopped on the timepiece, instead gazing at her across the room like a lost praying mantis.

“I’m sorry, that was rude, disturbing your concentration,” Elle apologized.

“It’s not that. It’s…someone like you’d have a lot of friends wondering where you are.”

“Hey, I keep them on voicemail from now on.”

“I wouldn’t want you to keep your life on hold.”

“It’s nothing important,” she said and picked up their wine glasses. Perhaps, in a panic, he hurried to say, “Hey, are you hungry? Yes, that was a stupid question,” he said morose. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Help yourself to the kitchen,” he offered. “Everything I have in there, is yours.”

Everything he had in there had to be prepared in some way. Well, anything worth eating. He didn’t have a bag of Doritos handy.

Problem. Big problem. And she had agonized in there, holed up, until finally he had come in.

“Uh. I have to tell you about a fib that I told you,” she said. “But it’s teeny,” she corrected, holding a thread-breath between her hands, illustrating how tiny and small that lie was.

“What, what lie?” he asked, a hard edge there. He stopped cold, staring her down.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to cook that well,” she said, eyelashes lowered and hands behind her back. Meek. “I wanted to give you personal attention, and that’s the best I could do. I wanted you to like me.”

The storm that was brewing underneath subsided. He wrapped her up in a hug, and she sighed. He was so careful she was like a little girl again.

“Like you? I don’t think you’ve been disliked a day in your life.” Gabriel touched the wisps of her blonde hair that framed her face, noticing her crystal blue eyes. “You’re too sweet. A ray of sunshine, untouched by the ugliness in this world.”

His words were like a fishing hook, dragging up scenes from her mind. It was such a secret, those screaming faces and death threats.

“I think I’ve had more than a day. A least a week,” she joked. “But then we made friends.”

“Wow,” he whispered, in awe.

But then they learned to like her since she held the food, and she held the presence of another human being after awhile. They learned to like it, too. She flashed back, running a hand down his shirt. “Plus, I wouldn’t say that I haven’t had my share of critics.”

“Of course, they don’t understand you like I do.” He rubbed a strand of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. “Trust me, if you could be here with me, you’re amazing.”

She blushed and settled into the hug. “I just want to help you, Gabriel. I want to take care of you.”  
That hard darkness, there when he talked about the world, slumped. He pressed his face against her neck, his eyes squeezed shut. She petted his hair, lightly.

“Except for feeding you. That’s a whole ‘nother story.”

“I can teach you,” he said instantly and proudly, lifting his head. Smiling beautifully. She had to admit, he had one hell of a smile when he did smile.

“Teach me, guru, I’m all yours.”

He preened a little. They started slow and ended up…well, none of her tries worked. His did, and that was fine with her.

Unbeknownst to her, it was fine with him too.

***

This was an embarrassment, a mark against her record, but the first time he allowed her into his bed was to read to her. He didn’t always smile when she touched his books since there was no lousy TV in this place. Not that she was a reading whiz, but she’d struggle through it, if she could.

“Collector’s item,” he explained, and she’d put it away and sit and listen. In the end, though, she couldn’t blame him. She’d torn up a lot of items in her time, and this angelic Elle could just as easily. Her Daddy said she was a hurricane, so she sat stiller, trying to be good. Gabriel was happy when she asked to be read to.

So, after a week and a half… she laid beside him.

He had told her, as if she had already known, that they weren’t married, and if she felt uncomfortable, at any time…

But she was happy. This was a first time for her, and she was all eyes and all ears, spell-bound, as he read her the Wizard of Oz with his deep voice. She noticed his hands, with his long fingers and with his silky black hair dotting the back of them. Those fingers. And his chest, and his long legs. She wanted to crawl up on top of him, here and now. But at the same time, his kindness held her at bay. This was new territory for her.

And the book version was pretty good! His voice even changed with the different characters! It was amazing!  
“No!” she whined and wiggled in her place when he closed the book halfway.

He grinned. “Now, now, you don’t want me to rupture my vocal cords.” He took a sip from the glass of water he had on hand.

“But you’ll read some more first thing tomorrow night?” she pressed.

“You really like this that much,” he observed, pleased that he had been the one to bring that out in her. She reached out her hands playfully, batting at him. He laughed but stopped abruptly when she did want she had wanted: crawled on top of him and pushed the book away.

They were so close to each other, and she could feel his heart (beating faster) and heat underneath her. Could feel it low and inside of her, and she had never wanted a man inside of her as badly as she wanted him to be. She wanted to see him like that, undone and in her hands. Trusting and yielding and open… She stared into his face, and saw a bit of fear.

“You do like me, don’t you?” Elle asked, surprised and a little hurt.

“No. It’s just we aren’t…dating, we aren’t married, I-.”

“We can still kiss, can’t we?”

He swallowed hard, licked his lips, and when he raised his eyes to her, she saw that he did want to kiss her. But not in a nice boy way. Inside of him, he wanted moremoremore, and that made her spark.

Gabriel wouldn’t let himself though. His hands were shaking, shivering, and though she could feel him reacting to her through her dress, there was a half hate there. She was bringing out the beast in him, and he couldn’t control that beast.

“Gabriel. We can kiss.”

“I won’t be good at it,” he whispered, his voice sounding thick and raspy, noticeably not looking at her cleavage, enhanced by her laying on his chest. His eyes shone, hating her and hating himself for hating her. Or hating himself for wanting her, loving her…

“We could try.” And it would have been, if she hadn’t added on. “I can teach you for a change.”

He froze, his hand on the back of her thigh, right near the edge of her white panties.

“I uh…don’t think that’d be a good idea, Elle. I’m sorry.”

It physically hurt to get off of him. She was about to call the deal off and retreat to the couch, but he grabbed her arm.

“Don’t, I…I’m sorry. Stay with me tonight. I. I really am sorry.”  
He sounded it. She laid back down, and he excused himself to the bathroom. She felt better about it when she heard the pipes whine as the shower turned on…

But not by much.

Gabriel came to bed, fully dressed, and his unease pretty much filled the room. He had his back to her, and without thinking about it, she reached out through the dark and gripped the back of his shirt, lightly.  
He relaxed. Of course it was to make him feel better than her.

Of course.

***

Elle woke up hearing a retching sound.

Peering through the blur of sleep, she saw the light on underneath the bathroom door. Wrapping the sheets around her due to the cold, she rapped lightly with her knuckles.

“Gabriel?”

To her surprise, she heard him curse under his breath.

“Go away, it’s nothing,” he said, panting.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing, it sounds like our dinner.” She tried the doorknob. Locked.

“Please. Just. Go back to bed. I’m not a problem, I swear. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Let me help you,” she said, struggling with the door. “I’ve seen worse.”

This was the truth. Vomit was on a good day.

“Not from me. Please. Please. Or I’ll be in here all night. I won’t come out.”

She clenched her jaw, angry and hurt. Her electricity wanted to surface, wanted to blow the door down, and pick him up off the floor. She could help, she was capable…and he was saying…

He didn’t want her to see him like this. After seeing him hanging, there was little worse. But it was like he was a stone statue. There was a lot going on in that head of his, but it was trapped there. Like electricity. And it was building up, the more he tried to contain it.

To be fair, she wouldn’t anyone to see her barf her lungs up either.

“Okay. I’m going back, okay. It’s okay,” she babbled.

He laughed bitterly.

***

Two days after, Elle caved and called Bennet for help.

Those two days were full of Gabriel being right there within her reach but in his head, he was somewhere else. In the woods somewhere deep. He looked past her, didn’t answer her. One time, right while working, he dropped his little instrument for his tinker toys and pressed his hands against his forehead, groaning.

“Oh my god,” he hissed, through clenched teeth, insanity building up behind his eyes. “What have I done? What?”

She gripped his shoulders, holding on to him. He let her, but he was not here. Not all the lights were home.  
“Tell me about it. Just get it off your chest,” she ordered.

“You wouldn’t understand.” Then he did something…he grabbed his face in his hands and started to scratch his face.

“Hey, hey,” Elle said, grabbing his hands. There were people outside who could look in. They could get the wrong kind of attention, here. Duh.

“I can’t tell you. You couldn’t even being to comprehend what I am, you couldn’t. No one can. No one.”

“Try me,” she said, gripping his chin and forcing him to look at her. He opened his mouth to speak, and then just smiled. A sad, forced smile.

“I’m sorry. That must have scared you. Sorrysorry.” He hugged on her n the bench, burying his face in her shoulder again. Elle just stared at the clocks on the wall, amazed. All this, over killing someone? To her, the act was like candy, as casual as smoking a cigarette. The killers in Level Five never acted this way.

Neither did the normal guys like Bennet and the rest of the Company men. She wanted to say, ‘Look, I’ve killed before. Not a big deal. Do you want me to kill someone in front of you to not feel so alone? Cause you’re not alone. You’re in the big leagues now’.

Yet. Yet. She liked how this was. She liked how it had been. So, she simply called Bennet while Gabriel was taking his ritualistic shower, talking in a whisper. Two nights of nightmares, two nights of him staring at her with shame that someone had seen him having them. Seen him crying and sweating and cussing awake.

It had been okay when she had saved his life. Now, with her in his lair for so long, there was a gulf of a difference growing. Elle’s solution was drugs. Plenty of drugs. Sleeping drugs, primarily. Time to knock him out and stop his mind from crucifying him.

“I don’t need medicine. That kind of thing won’t help me,” he complained as they walked to the drug store. “My mother said this was the way of weaklings and crack heads.”

What, pray tell, is a crack head? Oh never mind.

“Do you think I’m a crack head?” she dared, and he looked down, shaking his head. He ducked his head inside of his coat a little.

“It’s just for sleep. Everyone takes them.”

“Do you?” he accused, his eyes narrowing.

Did she? Yes. And she enjoyed it. She liked the old machine being tuned down, she liked the speed of her thoughts slow.

“No,” she answered. “But still.”

“Then pills are just for the rest of us, huh,” he muttered. “Someone like you sleeps peacefully, not a worry in the world. With a perfect life.”

They arrived at the pharmacy with Gabriel giving Elle the silent treatment. He stared stonily at the prescription in her hand. Bennet had done all the ordering, and the smartass had added Valium to the prescription.

“Now, don’t take these things with alcohol,” the pharmacist behind the desk advised, an egg-head looking guy who was a walking book. “You should take one after eating too.”

He went on and on, and Gabriel put his hands in his pockets, a friendly smile on his face. Out of earshot, he stepped closer to her. “I could have done that job in my sleep. Does he think we’re idiots? Talking down to us like that, when I know just as much as he does.”

Elle was a little taken aback because she usually caught bullshit and condescension. She was a pro at it, and if she had missed it, that was stupid.

“Well, I didn’t know,” she admitted, walking briskly, and he shrugged in reply, hands in pockets. The picture of a morose soul.

“You probably don’t believe me when I say that I do know what he knows. Every word and more. Much more.”  
“I do believe you,” she said, and her words seemed to only make him quieter. They got home, and he took the pills from her, saying he might as well go to bed.

Went into the small kitchen area and slammed the cabinets. “It’d be nice to have my cups where I had them. Sometime. After all I’ve been through, the week I’ve had, it’d be a little considerate of you. This is my apartment.”

She stood in the doorway, fidgeting. She wanted to vent, she wanted to scream. She had been trying so hard to help, and that was the worst part. She had been trying with all her heart. She didn’t want to fail, not again.

“I’m kind of messy, is all,” she said, and he shot her a dark look. Daddy never could find anything after she had been in his office. Not ever. “I’ll leave the cups alone, never touch them again. Honest.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he cried, holding a hand to his forehead. “I’m going to bed. If you’re not here in the morning, I’d understand. Hell, I wouldn’t even blame you. In your shoes, I would have left a long time ago. Anything that happens after isn’t your fault.”

Elle watched him close the bedroom door with her mouth open.

Feeling helpless.

***

Next time Elle saw him again, he was holding her in his arms, gently-gently. She blinked up at him, surprised.

“About last night, I…I know this has been hard on you. You are helping me, more than you know. You’re a saint to put up with this. And I wanted to treat you to something nice. If you’d accept it.”

The look out of his eyes had undergone a complete change. He was her Gabriel again, sweet and loving and hers. She cupped his face with her hands, feeling all right again.

“Yes! I love being here, and I’d accept anything from you. Any mood too.”

He blushed, smiling sheepishly. “You won’t have to. The pills did help. You were right, I wasn’t.”  
That seemed forced out, and before she could argued, he continued, flowers and niceness. “I didn’t dream of…anything last night. So, if you’d like, I was thinking I could take you out. Make it more official.”

“Sure!” she chirped, hugging him. She had never been out on a real date before.

It was more than she could have dreamed about. Elle was out among the crowd, in a pretty dress with pretty shoes, and they did eat at a lovely place. Gabriel had gone all out, taken her to the white tablecloth place with great china. They waited together in the lobby, and what Elle really noticed was how hard it was for him to be here.

He was dressed nicely, and he was the most handsome man in the room in his suit. But he couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye and he kept his body slumped, as if he were expecting to be lashed.

“Do you know how happy you’ve made me?” Elle asked, and she caught a small smile struggling there. “I feel like Audrey Hepburn.”

Gabriel’s cheeks turned red and he opened his mouth, but saw a man listening nearby. His mouth snapped shut.

“You know, in a place like this, I like soaking up the atmosphere,” Elle said, and held his hand. He squeezed it gratefully, and she could feel the slight shudders going up her arm.

She held his hand all the way to the table, and when they were seated, took his hand straight away. She could eat one-handed, no problem, and since he was quiet, she didn’t feel as if she had to prove that much or make up stories.

He winced when he clipped the side of his plate with his glass—making a sharp ting—and she rubbed his knuckles comfortingly with her thumb…and he looked at her with love.

Absolute love. Clearly in his eyes. She didn’t know how she could identify it, but she could. She didn’t know what to do. This was too large.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” he stated, quietly. “You know that? You’re a diamond among pebbles.”

Elle felt herself burn up, felt another kind of spark between their joined hands.

“I…” She was tongue-tied, and his stare was so intense. So deep. “Thank you. No one’s told me that before.”  
Gabriel frowned and squeezed her hand comfortingly. “That’s ridiculous.”

She swallowed hard and didn’t like the blur that was overtaking her vision; she preferred the shiver she had when he touched her.

“Well. You know,” she stammered, “It’s a tough crowd. Tough world.”

“I’m going to tell you how beautiful you are every day,” he promised, his eyes devout.

What was she supposed to do with something like that? What?

But say “I’d like that’ and hold on to him tightly. But corner him when she got him home.

“Please kiss me,” she begged, backing him up against the wall. “Please.”

His eyes searched her face hungrily, and his shoulders were shaking with repressed desire. “I can’t guarantee you won’t be disappointed.”

“You could never disappoint me.”

And once upstairs, when they made it home in the taxi, he did not disappoint, grabbing her roughly and slamming his lips against hers. He could not disappoint her, as he relaxed while her hands explored his body. They stumbled into his bedroom, tearing at each other, each desperate in their own way.

And no, they didn’t.

He stopped, just before, breathing hard on top of her. “I, we.”

“I’ll take a kiss for now. You’re the best.”

“You haven’t been kissed that much. Everyone else must have been too scared,” he dismissed, shyly inching his hand up to cup her breast. She arched into the touch, and it amazed him. He flushed, and his eyes grew darker. “I don’t know why, but…I’m not sad about that. Like you’ve been waiting for me my whole life.”

Elle thought that just might be true for both of them.

***

Gabriel wanted to take her out again, and this time they went to the mall.

Again, he couldn’t really keep his head up, but he stayed close to her. This was even better. There was a bubble-making machine in the lobby, and she thought that was the coolest thing on earth.

She reached out and gasped when she popped a shiny bubble that floated her way. He chuckled, watching her  
expression.

“You’re amazing. You find happiness in the smallest of things. Everything is new to you, everything wonderful,” he said.

“Stupid, huh?”

“No. Not at all. I admire it. That’s a real treasure.” The intensity of his stare made her want to stammer, so she just fiddled with her scarf. Then she found the merry-go-round and wanted to go on. He gladly paid for her to go, claiming he’d watch.

She loved it. The colorful lights and the horses and the music.

They wandered around, and though he didn’t want to eat at the food court himself, he still paid her way. She did most of the talking, as always, but neither minded.

She spotted the skating-rink on the lower level, and she thought, maybe Gabriel could have fun too.

“Let’s show them a thing or two. I bet you can skate a mean figure eight.”

She pulled but he stopped, and wasn’t moving. His eyes darted around, taking in the people skating. He shook his head.

“Oh. Oh I’ll watch you. That’s good enough for me.”

“We’ll fall together. I’ll look way sillier. You’re a natural at any single thing, and I-.”

“I can’t.”

He wanted to do it. His eyes didn’t match with his mouth. His eyes were desperate and he wanted to do it with her. He wanted to try and skate and hold each other up. He wanted to have fun and laugh and live.

But he couldn’t.

Elle hugged him tightly that night and they went a little further, just that much further, but she didn’t push him.

“I’m happy, you make me happy,” she promised.

He touched her arm, staring at her in the dark.

***

The weeks were better than they had a right to be.

Gabriel bought her a TV set and found he liked it himself. He stretched across the couch and laid his head on her lap, watching the screen intently. Then eventually he just started to watch her intently. Trusting and open. He read to her. She stayed with him in the shop. And they kissed, and Elle thought it was building up to something more. Felt it was, and it was scary, but in a good way.

One night, she found a teddy bear on what was now her side of the bed. She stared at it, remembering how she had stared at the bear through the store window. She had been in Bennet’s house more than once and had seen the room full of bears. Really, she had just been looking but this meant Gabriel had noticed her looking. It meant that he had braved the mall alone for her.

No one had ever gone out of their way for her.

This was turning into something wonderful and real and free. When he was happy, when he was kind, when he would smile that smile, she was calm. Inside, things were peaceful. Her fantasies were still dark, and unlike other girls, who would have minded being indoors for so long, who were unused to be in one place for so long, she was happy.

As long as she had him, she was happy. She’d laugh and not feel mean, and like to feel mean. This was a new side to herself that she needed to see. Gabriel was getting bolder, becoming more comfortable with her. At the end night of this lull, he had ventured to slide his hand past the band of her panties and touch her. It was electric, and he was enthralled by the expressions he could bring to her face just under a touch.

It was finally going well.

And then Doctor Suresh came a calling.

***

Elle hadn’t heard the conversation that morning, still tucked into bed.

She waited a while, stretched out under the covers, because sometimes he would bring her breakfast in bed with a rose—a real rose!—on a tray. Even though he grimaced if she got anything on the comforter, which she did once and felt bad about.

She got up after a few hours and wandered into the kitchen…then froze.

Gabriel sat at the table, staring at nothing, his face really pale. He even looked a little ruffled in his clothes.

“Morning,” Elle called. Nothing. “You want me to give it the old college try and make you-.”

“No. Eggs? Really? Yes, I’ll have some eggs and it will make this all better.”

He laughed, but it made the hair on the back of her neck rise up, and he sipped his coffee. After that, it seemed like his face was fixated in a horrible smile. Stuck there.

Maybe a good shock would make it all better, she thought, but he looked so pitiful there. He was different from the other men and women she had dealt with. She could keep herself separate from them, as they spit and yelled and growled and raved. Gabriel was more like a black hole or quicksand. And even she couldn’t fault  
him for it.

“What’s wrong?”

“I learned a good friend of mine has gone missing. He’s presumed dead, and another old friend of mine came to  
inform me that he had heard there was a funeral to be held.”

Elle knew that was not good news. She could guess whom the funeral was for.

“Oh. It happens, right? People die all the time.”

Gabriel looked at her, and then really looked at her. Looked at her face and then, strangely, down at her bare feet. It made her want to twitch her toes but she forced herself not to.

“I didn’t think that you’d say something like that.”

“It’s true,” she said. “They drop like flies. I guess it’s sad, but-.”

“It’s not. Not really,” he said, sipping his coffee. His mouth was growing redder, and judging from the steam from the cup, that coffee was unbearably hot. Elle stared at him.

“I think you should take a nap.”

“Even better than the eggs. You’re on a roll today, angel.”

Elle was about to tell him off, really let him have it, but then he asked her, “Would you go with me to the funeral?”

Really, really bad idea. He turned in his seat to stare at her, plaintively.

“You’re not up for that,” she advised. Sure, she had never been to a funeral, and she was curious about it.

But Gabriel wouldn’t have fun with it.

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. Don’t presume to know me that well.”

Ironically, he was the person she knew best. “I know enough.”

“I’m going. It’s at two o’clock. I’ll be ready…well, I’m ready now, but I’ll be leaving at one. If you don’t want to come with me, don’t bother.”

Naturally, she had to go to buy a black dress for the occasion.

***

Everyone was really quiet and it was really dull.

They had to take the subway to get to the funeral place, and inside, there weren’t that many people. At this, Gabriel seemed relieved. When his mother went to speak and ended up bursting into bitter sobs, he seemed like he had seen a ghost and wanted to jump out of his skin. Elle had her hand on his knee the whole time, and his muscles twitched.

“He was my everything,” the mother stated, slurred, dead on her feet, and Elle wanted to roll her eyes.

Gabriel just stared at her. It was hurting him, seeing this, and it hurt her, which she didn’t like. The temptation to fry everyone in the room for making him look like that was almost too hard to beat.

At the end, he served into the small line forming to talk with the mother. She couldn’t imagine what the fuck he was going to say, and she didn’t think he did either. He had almost snarled at her as she pulled him out of the line, but besides it bothering her a little, she didn’t let him go until he left.

On the train, he was quiet. Too quiet and too stiff, as if he had just attended his own funeral. She wrapped an arm around him and kissed his cheek, but he shrugged her off, his eyes watching something over and over and over again in his head. “Not now, Elle.”

In the glass window, the passenger in front of them looked at her. Not exactly life-affirming, this whole thing.

At home, she sat down to be quiet. When her daddy was in the very worst moods, it was best to be tough and be quiet, and she thought it’d be the same for Gabriel.

“That was depressing,” he announced to the room. Yay or nay. What is the right answer? Elle crossed her arms and leaned into the couch. She wanted to watch TV, but didn’t quite dare.

“It was a funeral,” she said, and that seemed to be the right answer.

“You have a point,” Gabriel said, fiddling with his glasses. “You do. I’m sorry I kissed you.”

He delivered the whole monologue in such the same tone that she almost missed that last part.

“When? You haven’t today.”

“I mean, ever. You didn’t know who you were kissing.”

“I liked kissing you, and I’m doing it again.” When the moment was right. “I don’t need to know…every dark corner.”

“A dark corner,” Gabriel said and wandered to the bookshelf. “Yes. That’s a good word for it.”

“You need to lighten up,” she suggested and bounced her foot impatiently.

“Theoretically. Just theoretically,” Gabriel said, ignoring her and pulling out a book. Opened it in his hands. “A man’s life is like a story. If you were to theoretically kill someone, it’d be like erasing all the words from that point. And there is some good stuff here, in the later chapters. Love. Happiness. Children. Just like that, you erased it. Think of it.”

He put the book back, his hands lingering on the books nearby.

Never had she heard killing described like that: killing was just killing. Her daddy had said so. She wondered if Daddy was wrong. That’s when the realization hit her, flooded over her. Where he was, she couldn’t reach him. Bennet had been right. She was ill-equipped, and that wasn’t fair. If she had had a chance to be raised how Bennet had raised his child, if she had had that chance…

The pang of that reality nearly made her spark. Because Gabriel was different for her than the others.

“Except his mother still lives with it. Will live with always wondering, for the rest of her life. There could be a whole generation gone. And the supposed murderer, he does too. The memory never goes away, more real and alive than the man had been. The memory sticks as much as what was taken. In a matter of seconds, the murderer has isolated himself from life completely, now knowing too much. Can never go back. Actually, two lives died that day, and one’s just living like something undead. Everything after that moment is gray, with the knowledge that yes, yes, you can. Living is harder than dying.”

“No,” Elle said. “It takes more courage to live, that’s true, but…” She had tied herself up. Either way, any way, was the wrong way, a dead end. She stood up, holding out her arms. “Gabriel, come here.”

“How can you still…”

“I’d never turn my back on you.”

She started to walk towards him, but she felt invisible hands push her back.

“If you want to hurt me, just hit me. Right in the face, as hard as you can. If you need to get it out of you in that way, then hit me. If you need to do it another way, take me, do that too. Whatever you need to do, I can take from you. I’m tougher than any other girl, and I think you’re right. I was made for this. And then after this night, it’s done. We can live. We can go on. We can have our own story. His is done, ours isn’t. It shouldn’t be.”

“I’d never hit you,” he argued, fixated on one thing, and she shook him off of it in a hurry.

“Yes, that would involve touching me.”

“…Elle.”

“I think I love you, Gabriel.”

His hard expression crumbled. He wanted to come to her, wanted to cling to her and hug her and love her, and she’d take it and never let it go.

“I need you,” she said. “Live for me, then.”

“But afterwards, the afterwards, we won’t be in the same place. Forever. I feel sorry for you, that you got involved.”

“Gabriel, come here,” Elle requested again, and motioned her arms.

“Let me get something. Hold on. Hold on.”

The relief bleeding through every word, and he had gotten that bur out of his mind. There, there. They could move on now.

She rubbed her arms, getting life back into her limbs, and thought the storm was over.

The mood changed abruptly when Gabriel came back into the living room with a kitchen knife. At first, it didn’t change for the worst; Elle stared at the large blade, the electric fireplace reflecting in both it and Gabriel’s eyes. He held it by the handle awkwardly, his face expressionless. What game is this?

“I’m going to set you free.”

Elle lowered her arms. “Gabriel, what are you going to do?”

“I need you to do this for me. If it hadn’t been for my mother, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have. I’ve done it for her, and in the end, she’d just be ashamed of me. But my courage is gone, Elle. I can’t kill myself again. That was the moment, and it passed.”

He turned the knife around in his hand and held out the handle towards her. He walked towards her like that.  
“If you love me, you’ll do this. Do this, and save lives. I went there, and the broken world started to scream again.”

“What screaming? Look, I can get you help.”

“No, no you can’t. This is it. Do it.”

“No, I won’t. You can’t tell me what to do, just like that.” Elle didn’t mind killing usually, but this was Gabriel. Some part of her also understood that he was asking her to isolate herself from life. Isn’t that it? Too little, too late, and she didn’t care, but he was still asking her, unaware of that factoid.  
That hurt her worse than this threat. He would leave her behind.

“You need someone more human than I can be. You deserve someone who can hold you for God’s sakes,” Gabriel exclaimed, the knife shaking in his hands and she saw the tears glistening on his face, and before she realized it, they had circled the couch, travelling the circumference of the room. Two steps back, three steps forward.

“I’m not what you think I am. I’m just like you,” she insisted. “Calm down, and I’ll show you. You’re not alone in this.”

But maybe, maybe he was. Maybe he was more trapped than those men in the cages. Gabriel’s expression started to change to stone, stone with fire inside, the more she refused and the more she backed away.

“You regret ever coming into the shop that day. You regret getting tied up to me. I’m an obligation, a burden,” he hissed, his eyes burning on the inside with the Truth. Only it wasn’t, not at all.

“Well, guess what, you’re my burden, you asshole.”

He flinched at her word choice, and shook his head, smiling. Smiling. “You won’t want me in your family, trust me on this one. Perhaps something will happen to them, you know. Something.”

She thought of it, and nearly threw it to the side in her mind, but…her father was her god. She’d say that he’d be safe behind his walls and never die, because he never could, but Gabriel was…different. If her father were to die, it would be like the sun had gone out.

Elle hesitated, and Gabriel seized the moment.

He rushed forward, knife blade turned towards her. When did that happen? In a panic, a flash of self-preservation won over, and she grabbed at the blade. Like a shifting mirage, the knife had turned again, towards him, and she struggled with it, grappled with it.

She had sweat that day, and it was on her hands and in her shoes, and she could hardly stay upright, sliding  
around.

“Gabriel, no!”

Elle had never fought with anyone to save their own life, and she held on for his dear life. She gripped the knife blade, felt it cut into her hand and it stung like a bitch. Her grip was suddenly wetter, and slick.

“Do it,” he growled, wild, and somehow, this shifty, twisting thing between them found a place to bury itself. The feeling of the blade going through her stomach, right under her ribs, was unreal, was white before it filled in with a bright red, neon in her head, and she screamed, the pain overwhelming.

Shocked, he let go, and she fell, the impact shaking the blade inside of her. Elle almost laughed. She might have laughed. The knife was moving, after all. The man she had wanted inside of her the most, the one she was capable of loving. The one she did love, as much as she could.

And she was a muddy red all over her white, pure dress. Her face twisted up into something horrible.  
Gabriel stood over her, his mouth wide open, and he knelt down, spewing apologies, babbling at her. Her ears were ringing. She was wet, and she hated being wet. How much was this dress?

He put a hand on her knee, horrified, and was ready to pull her up when she shocked him.

Elle hadn’t even meant to. The lightning reached out and burst out of her skin, sensing in its own way that it was going to die in this sea of read, and it hit him full force.

It hit him full force.

Elle screamed and crawled towards him. His body was smoking. His skin was charred, his glasses twisted and melted into his face. His eyes stared up into nothing, not knowing what had happened, the expression of his own shock and fear and sadness just ghosts.... His heart had stopped cold.

“NOO,” she screamed and screamed. She said so much, so much begging, begging for Bennet to get the blood in the van. She’d get it herself if she could move, and she tried to get up. Couldn’t. She grabbed his hand and held it. It was warm just from the shock.

Nothing else. She held his hand to her face, and she remembered him telling her that he’d tell her how beautiful…her dreams of happiness faded with the warmth in his hand.

Only then, did Bennet bring the blood for her.

***

In the end, Elle started to understand what Gabriel had meant.

She was going to live, and her father would make her. She’d live as long as she could, in the best of health. At night, she only thought of how her arms were empty and how no one would lay their hand in her lap. She had nothing to remind her of him, not even his gift to her. That, too, had been confiscated. She thought if only she had been different, it wouldn’t have happened, that she could have saved him. She had to live with that, and only now she knew what he had meant.

In the end, she didn’t even know who the true beast had been.


End file.
